“Of course. Records are important.” He moved to kiss her temple, but she withdrew slightly. What’s the matter with her?

She cocked her head to one side, studying him in that way that made him nervous. Then she tossed her wet hair back and added archly, “Besides, you had me train to do this job for Shimon, and I’m going to do it! just remember that the next time you come up with a brilliant idea to send me away. I don’t waste training, even training I don’t need.”

With that, she spun out the door. A moment later she popped back in and added, “Eight-hundred, on the nose. B.Y.O.B. I’m getting pizza and beer.” And she was gone.

B.Y.O.B. could mean Bring Your Own Blood. Her quip made him smile despite his sudden uncertainty about her. At least Abbot didn’t know what she meant to him, and she didn’t know what to make of Abbot. But how long could he keep it that way? Scheduling time with Inea without making her suspicious about his absences, as he chased around looking for Abbot’s unMarked stringers, would be a colossal challenge.

When he arrived at the lab, the reassembly of the system was well begun. Shimon had set a pace that both allowed step-by-step testing and kept up the progress rate, spurring everyone on. The man definitely had earned a raise, as had his whole staff. Knowing the thought would get lost in the affairs facing him, Titus called Colby immediately.

“Oh, Dr. Shiddehara!” answered an assistant. He was a lanky, lantern-jawed Black with a vaguely Oriental cast to his features. Titus had heard he’d given up a high post with Consumer’s Union to take this job. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Dr. Colby wants to speak with you.”

Uh-oh. “That’s good. Put her on.”

After a long wait, she came onscreen flushed and breathless.

might well have been screaming at somebody. “There you are, Titus. It’s about time.”

“Yes, indeed. I-”

“Don’t talk, just listen. You’ve been following the press coverage on that assassin? Well, that wasn’t the first infiltrator we caught. But the publicity has impressed the highest government circles with the size of the anti-Project movement. We’re going to lose our appropriation, and our scientific reputations, unless we convince the public we’re spending their money wisely. So Nagel was forced to accept terms-I’ve fought, but I’ve had to capitulate, too.

“Twenty reporters will be here day after tomorrow to tour the station and report directly to the people. If we handle it right, this nonsense will die down, and the terrorists will be criminals, not heroes. But if we look wasteful or deceitful, that’s the end of the Project.

“Now, I need your help, Titus. You’re right at the focus of all this because of your computer’s cost overrun. It must be up and running day after tomorrow-and it’s got to do something spectacular they can take pictures of.”

Titus digested that. Abbot must have had wind of this days ago-and that was why he was so eager to help. Abbot, whose mission was to send an SOS., had nearly scuttled the entire Project with his retaliation at Titus that first day.

Abbot the invincible. Ha!

“What are you so happy about?” asked Colby.

Think quick! “Carol, let me get Shimon on the line.”

He buzzed Shimon’s desk without response, then resorted to the oldest method of office communication. He stuck his head out the door and called, “Shimon! Pick up on Two!”

When he got back to the vidcom, the screen was split, showing Carol briefing Shimon. In the end, Shimon studied Titus’s image deadpan. The silence stretched until Titus said, “Shimon, I know we won’t need Nandoha’s help on this one.” His eyes met Shimon’s. Shimon knew Titus had fought Abbot’s presence as much as he could.

Titus could almost see the wheels turning in the man’s mind. He had swallowed his resentment of Abbot’s arrogance with professional stoicism, and he even respected Abbot’s ability. But he disliked the man intensely. He had, however, grasped early on that Colby’s primary measure of an employee’s value was the employee’s loyalty to the immediate supervisor as well as to the Project. Nodding at last, Shimon declared, “No problem, Colby. We finish tonight, even we go into overtime. We test tomorrow and set up something visual for the press.”

Colby beamed. “I see why Titus has such faith in you. You give me a good show day after tomorrow, Shimon, and you’ll get a big raise, retroactive.”

“You got it.”

Colby signed off, and a moment later Shimon stormed into the office. “Mochrotayim! She’s got to be kidding!” He paced a furious circle, one hand on his head.

“Thanks for backing me, Shimon. I know it’s going to be hard. Just tell me what you need and you’ll have it.”

He paused, hands on hips. “Titus, if you didn’t sent Inea to be trained for this, we’d never make it. Can I tell the crew they’ll get double-time for overtime tonight if they’ll stay until we’ve finished?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea.”

“It could be all night. Just one defective part-”

“I know. Meanwhile, I’ll get a demo program written.”

Shimon pursed his fingers at the ceiling in the typical Israeli gesture. “Rega, rega! Inea’s project! It would be perfect! For fun, she wrote this program for a holographic projection of the Taurus region-complete with an animated, stomping thoroughbred bull. The thing rotates so you can view our sun from the other side of the constellation. Then you get an animated closeup of each of the stars-she said it’s just a toy because she used ancient data on the starspots. I don’t pretend to understand it all. Ask her.”

He nodded. “Great, but do we have a projector for it?” “No, but before the chemists arrived we were using their tank. Maybe we can borrow it again?”

The chemists used a three-dimensional viewing tank to manipulate complex organic molecules. “Is it in color?” Yes, and so was Inea’s program. She added that last.“ It would make an impressive if irrelevant demonstration, say, we’ll make a couple dozen copies of a broadcast quality and be sure Inea’s copyright is on it.”

It took Titus three hours to organize everything, but at last he took Connie’s black box out to the lab. Inea and half the crew were in the observatory, arguing over the schematics, steaming coffee mugs abandoned behind them.

Working fast, cloaked by a minimum of Influence, Titus spliced the communicator into its circuit and replaced the boards that surrounded it, hiding it from view. If it didn’t malfunction in the first test, he’d get his message out the first time they contacted Earth. He had already reinforced the entire crew’s blindness to the black box. Only Inea could see it, and she wouldn’t say anything.

He returned to his office and coded his message to Connie into his desk unit. The moment this system linked to the Project’s system in Houston, Sydney, or Beer Sheva, the black box would call out the text from his desk unit and send it to a similar black box on the other end. He only hoped that one of Connie’s people, not a Tourist, would pick it up.

In his report, he apprised Connie of his blood situation, and tersely reminded her that, despite his successes to date, he couldn’t handle Abbot alone. He also warned her of the clandestine Project, and sketched his plans.

He wished it were all as simple as it sounded.

Idly watching Inea, all he wanted to do was write poetry in physics and make love. But he shook himself out of it, and breezed out of the lab, telling everyone he was going to the ship. Then he went in search of Abbot’s stringers.

He’d already checked everyone who ever had access to his own lab and had found no trace of Abbot’s meddling. He hadn’t expected to. Now he strolled the halls, examining every passerby. He searched refectories and snack bars, and detoured through the gym. His most valuable quarry would be someone Abbot had Influenced but left unMarked, and that was hard to spot. So he moved slowly, and triggered belligerent reactions by staring-Mirelle could do this without upsetting people!